DNA damage in circulating leukocytes measured with the comet assay may predict the risk of death

Stefano Bonassi (1) , Marcello Ceppi (2) , Peter Møller (3) , Amaya Azqueta (4, 5) , Mirta Milić (6) , Neri Monica (1) , Gunnar Brunborg (7) , Roger Godschalk (8) , Gudrun Koppen (9) , Sabine Langie (8) , João Paulo Teixeira (10) , Marco Bruzzone (2) , Juliana da Silva (11) , Danieli Benedetti (11) , Delia Cavallo (12) , Cinzia Lucia Ursini (12) , Lisa Giovannelli (13) , Silvia Moretti (14) , Patrizia Riso (15) , Cristian del Bo’ (15) , Patrizia Russo (16) , Malgorzata Dobrzyńska (17) , Irina Goroshinskaya (18) , Ekaterina Surikova (18) , Marta Staruchova (19) , Magdalena Barančokova (19) , Katarina Volkovova (19) , Alena Kažimirova (19) , Bozena Smolkova (20) , Blanca Laffon (21, 22) , Vanessa Valdiglesias (22, 21) , Susana Pastor (23) , Ricard Marcos (23, 24) , Alba Hernández (23, 24) , Goran Gajski (6) , Biljana Spremo-Potparević (25) , Lada Živković (25) , Elisa Boutet-Robinet (26, 27) , Hervé Perdry (28) , Pierre Lebailly (29) , Carlos Perez (30) , Nursen Basaran (31) , Zsuzsanna Nemeth (32) , Anna Safar (32) , Maria Dusinska (33) , Andrew Collins (34)

1 IRCCS San Raffaele Pisana - Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico
2 Ospedale Policlinico San Martino [Genoa]
3 UCPH - University of Copenhagen = Københavns Universitet
4 UNAV - Universidad de Navarra [Pamplona]
5 IdiSNA - Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Navarra [Pamplona, Spain]
6 Institute for Medical Research and Occupational Health
7 NIPH - Norwegian Institute of Public Health [Oslo]
8 NUTRIM - School of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism [Maastricht]
9 VITO - Flemish Institute for Technological Research
10 INSA - Instituto Nacional de Saùde Dr Ricardo Jorge [Portugal]
11 Universidade Luterana do Brasil - ULBRA (BRAZIL)
12 INAIL - Istituto Nazionale per l’Assicurazione contro gli Infortuni sul Lavoro [Italian Workers Compensation Authority]
13 NEUROFARBA Department [Firenze, Italy]
14 UniFI - Università degli Studi di Firenze = University of Florence = Université de Florence
15 UNIMI - Università degli Studi di Milano = University of Milan
16 IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute [Milan, Italie]
17 National Institute of Public Health - National Institute of Hygiene [Poland]
18 N.N. Blokhin National Medical Research Center of Oncology
19 SMU - Slovak Medical University of Bratislava
20 SAS - Slovak Academy of Science [Bratislava]
21 UDC - University of A Coruña
22 INIBIC - Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de A Coruña [La Corogne, Espagne]
23 UAB - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona = Autonomous University of Barcelona = Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona
24 CIBERESP - Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Epidemiología y Salud Pública = Consortium for Biomedical Research of Epidemiology and Public Health
25 School of Medecine [Belgrade]
26 ToxAlim-COMICS - Contaminants & Stress Cellulaire
27 ToxAlim - ToxAlim
28 CESP - Centre de recherche en épidémiologie et santé des populations
29 ANTICIPE - Unité de recherche interdisciplinaire pour la prévention et le traitement des cancers
30 Instituto de Ciencias Básicas y Preclínicas Victoria de Girón
31 Hacettepe University = Hacettepe Üniversitesi
32 National center for public health [Hungary]
33 NILU - Norwegian Institute for Air Research
34 UiO - University of Oslo

Abstract The comet assay or single cell gel electrophoresis, is the most common method used to measure strand breaks and a variety of other DNA lesions in human populations. To estimate the risk of overall mortality, mortality by cause, and cancer incidence associated to DNA damage, a cohort of 2,403 healthy individuals (25,978 person-years) screened in 16 laboratories using the comet assay between 1996 and 2016 was followed-up. Kaplan–Meier analysis indicated a worse overall survival in the medium and high tertile of DNA damage (p < 0.001). The effect of DNA damage on survival was modelled according to Cox proportional hazard regression model. The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) was 1.42 (1.06–1.90) for overall mortality, and 1.94 (1.04–3.59) for diseases of the circulatory system in subjects with the highest tertile of DNA damage. The findings of this study provide epidemiological evidence encouraging the implementation of the comet assay in preventive strategies for non-communicable diseases.

Mots clés: Biomarkers; Risk factors

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Stefano Bonassi, Marcello Ceppi, Peter Møller, Amaya Azqueta, Mirta Milić, et al.. DNA damage in circulating leukocytes measured with the comet assay may predict the risk of death. Scientific Reports, 2021, 11 (1), ⟨10.1038/s41598-021-95976-7⟩. ⟨hal-03328571⟩